The Gamble of Fools
by talking cockerel
Summary: Before today is done, the lowest vampire will ride on the submission of the pureblood prince: Kuran Kaname-sama. In this foolish show of power, two fools gamble with pride, power and dominance. Asato and Kaname.


**A/N : This short story picks up off where "Bold as Brass" left off - do read it to get a better idea of the setting, but if not, here is a summary : Kaname has matured into adulthood, about 50 years of age, and has challenged Asato Ichijo, eldest and most powerful of the Council of Thirteen, to a one-on-one battle in the Court of Faith. Other vampire nobles have gathered to witness the fight. The entire story is told from Ichiou's lecherous and twisted perspective. **

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**_~ Before today is done, I will make the lowest of vampires in the Court of Faith ride on your submission. ~_**

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All the eyes of the arena are on you.

_The diving falcon – the bamboo springing - _Kuran whirls through the different steps in our clash of swords, my one handed great sword an implacable bolt of steel against his twin bastard blades - _no! – the spiral – too fast! – the twisting antlers –_

Suddenly my sword is caught between his two blades and flipped away, and in that instant where I am disarmed, Kuran kicks my legs out from under me; I sprawl to all fours before him, and in a fluid motion a sword is leveled beneath my chin, its edge tilting my head back with its threatening proximity. My eyes rest on the golden light glancing off Kaname's blade, as glorious as my heartbeat, as defying as his. There is only one thing I can do now.

He is so near, within my touch, my grasp. He turns the blade a little, a menacing caress, and I, in turn, press my throat against his sword, moving my neck up and down along the sleek silver length. The way I would against a lover's shoulder. Skin parts, blood flows down the sword in my neck, into the clavicle of my shoulder; I tempt him!

Drink from me, I goad him. End it. Complete your dominance over mine. I smile, wondering if he is confused by my lack of fear? – no, of course he smiles back. We are too learned in this dance of deception not to read each other's intentions. I want him, that I have made known for decades. And he wants my submission. He can have it now.

And yet I know he will not claim me, not yet. In this game of thrones, he is still pureblood, and like all things pureblood, will draw out my submission and obeisance to the delight of himself and his lascivious audience, and I am, of course, enjoying the attention immensely. I revel in the pure power in its unadulterated form, because I, in the dirt, on my knees before my prince, I pull the strings, not Kuran. Power, my little princeling, lies in those who can hold the attention and subsequently, the loyalty, of others. With such skill and experience as mine at capturing the audience, the attention is mine alone to wield, and wield it I do.

I lick Kaname's sword. See how, with this single action, I have the audience painfully aroused? All I need do is this : I move my neck till the point of Kuran's sword rests on my Adam's apple, resting my eyes on his white hand over the hilt, the white hand that I want. Slowly, leisurely, I lower my head and run my tongue over the edge of his blade; I know the contrast of pink velvet darkening to the crimson of my blood, against the silver mirror, is erotic and pleasing; I also know to tilt my head, exposing the cut on my neck.

Take me, claim me, come on, I taunt, as I move forward on my knees, never taking my eyes off his hand, keeping my gaze demurely lowered. Success – his fingers rearrange themselves on the hilt, his thumb strokes the ridges of the hilt as though he longs to touch something else. My head slides up, my neck stretches, until I reach the base of his blade, and only then do I raise my eyes to his; glee dances in my eyes, and I see the red of lust spilling through his control, shimmering in his gaze. The spectators have been reduced to little more than rutting beasts; – the man fisting their pants to control themselves, the women fidgeting in their seats and crossing their legs, squeezing their breasts together, and I almost laugh to think that, this day, I will cause all these lords of gold and silver to soil their dresses and stain their pants with desire.

For it pleases them to see their pureblood prince as wanton as an alley whore, writhing – almost – in my mouth. My doing. My power.

I chuckle and wrap my lips around the hilt of his sword, inches from his sweating fingers. I can hear the throb of excitement in his pulse now, he is losing control, losing to me. Maintaining eye contact, his smirk widens to a lopsided bulge of fangs as I mock him with my tongue, flitting into the groove of his grip, between the dip of his knuckles and between his fingers. His breathing slows deliberately to a tempered regularity when my nose brushes his fingers. It is delightful to witness his impeccable control. The more flawless his façade, the greater his effort to put it up, and the greater my influence on him. Wonderful!

Abruptly his sword moves, tips my chin up with its point, and it digs into my Adam's apple. I rise gracefully, hands resting at my side. When he steps forward, I back up accordingly. He drives me against one side of the arena, and palms a stake from one of the sides. He hefts it experimentally, like a knight does a lance, and I know what is going to happen a split second before it does.

Kuran hefts the banner like a spear, flips it around and drives it, end first, through my abdomen. Blunt as the staff is, it doesn't pierce my flesh so much as stretch my muscle and organs inward by force till they give way to the battering ram of wood. The slap of tissue snapping away is accompanied by the crack of splitting stone behind as a wedge of wood as thick as my wrist embedded in the wall.

The pain is agonizing, debilitating beyond imagination, and I will admit that the bellow forced from my lungs was one of fear and shock. Kuran bears down on the protruding end of the staff, a good five feet and more of it, and I scream as the staff flexes and bends, stretching the wound in my gut. Not even my healing can remove the pain. With a sharp blow he breaks the staff a few inches from my abdomen. That shift in the staff's position has me howling incoherently, the feeling of pain gut wrenching and unbearable. My knees buckle without permission, for I am in sheer agony; the movement further increases the already acute pain. My bowels churn uncontrollably, I clutch the part of wood protruding from me and retch, though the hot, slick oil spills from my belly, not my mouth; dark blood soaks the front of my robes. My trembling feet scramble for purchase and stability on the ground while I struggle to spit the last of froth from my mouth; I blink back angry tears of pain, and try my best to steady my breathing.

Say that I was terrified, horrified, for a stark moment where I faced death – then I regain, through my haze of torment, some semblance of sense that allows for rational thought – no, Kuran would have dragged out my humiliation, demanded my subservience, wanted me alive and fighting and laughing, not vanquished and begging. He will not kill me yet, he wants me only to toy with.

So. I look at him with as much dignity as is available to one staked to a wall.

Kaname has planted the rest of the staff into the ground and is resting his chin on the top end of it, eyeing me with a deceptive child-like thoughtfulness. Remember, I tell myself, that Kuran committed the greatest crime of our race barely out of childhood, and committed it openly. At fourteen, Rido Kuran's murderer stood before me with that selfsame ruthlessness as does this demon now. I have a feeling that the end of the staff under his chin will be connecting with my limbs later, breaking them into impossible pieces, and that he would stop just shy of my death, to let me scream. To let me heal. It is unpleasant, maybe, but – it is arousing. Well, we are a masochistic people, and as Kuran continues to look at me, baiting the crowd, his gaze changes from one of wide-eyed innocence to a lazing predator's half lidded gaze. His lashes lower and rise over his orbs, cloudy and thunderous with lust. I know that gaze – by turns ebony and scarlet, the colours of his house – black for dominance, and red for desire. My own loins twist suddenly as he steps closer and my hand rises unbidden to cup his face.

He smiles into my touches, his hand goes to the convulsing hole in my abdomen and slicks itself in my blood. Then he raises his bloody fist to my neck and smears a ruby necklace across my throat, over the fresh wound I made by his sword that healed just moments ago. The remainder of it he stains on my own lips, leaving a wide red smear.

"Clean your lips, Ichijo", he purrs, and I leer once, knowing what he wants to see. I make the action slow and sensuous, my tongue stretched from one side to other, over my lips, then over the smooth column of my elongating fangs, to show him my fervor as well. Although I still bleed, my body accustoms itself to the pain as long as I do not shift position, and bondage heightens our desire – ours, and all those watching us.

"Are all of the Ancients as talented you are, Ichijo-sama?" he whispers, entranced by my tongue.

"Perhaps, my lord. After all, my lips are older than you are." I say it casually, but am very aware of the way my lips close and tongue form the words.

"That is so. Then, think you that young lips would be better suited to learn new tricks than old lips?" Kuran asks, and the implications are clear – the young lips are a reference to his own lips, which are young compared with mine. My blood burns to think of these 'tricks', and I reply in the same metaphor.

"Indeed, I would expect no less skill from lips of a pureblood's caliber."

_Such insolence, Ichijo! Do you wish a long and painful death?! _

(Loyal, faithful Kyoya, the Third of the ancients and the most prudent of us. How dare he interrupt?)

"And what of lips made just moments ago, Ichijo-sama?" he murmured. I almost stall for a moment in incomprehension, but then I hearken back the renaissance of euphemism, when lips were a reference not only to the mouth but the vagina, and any orifice of the body. What he refers to by the "lips newly made" is none other than the bleeding cavity forced through my abdomen. By extension, if he were to "teach new tricks" to my wound…

Whether he intends to pull me off the wooden stake and impale me on his living one, or pull out the stake and fill me with his own, or else to widen my already ripped maw by sheathing himself alongside the weapon – I do not know, and the stars help me; it is complete pleasure for the one and utter torment for the other. I am more afraid now than I ever remember being, I am downright terrified, and sickeningly aroused by Kuran's cruel dominance.

And I remember – his is waiting for a reply.

"Of newly made lips, Kuran-sama…they would require – much teaching," I answer, as carefully and quietly as I can, the better to capture his whole attention.

"And does one break a mongrel with a whip or encourage it with a bone?" he inquires. How well he links the metaphor from teaching old dogs new tricks to teaching new lips new tricks and back to dogs again – I am most stirred by his blatant advances, impressed so, for the first time in an age I find myself scrambling for answers, for comebacks bold enough to please the pureblood prince.

"I would take any lesson of yours, be they enforced with whip or bone," I reply, upping the notch of our insinuations by discarding them. There is a gasp from the audience magnified tenfold, a collective intake of admiring breaths for my audacious words. But of course, none make their way to the head of the Ancient Thirteen by modesty.

"Truly, Ichijo? For what price would you barter the dignity of your crown jewels?"

Too late, I find myself in a trap. The pun is clever again, capturing my position and my manhood in the phrase "crown jewels." Of course, my submission is valued only by Kuran's blood, and that is the only price I will ask. And yet it is an answer I cannot give, not yet. The time is not ripe for me to demand a pureblood's greatest gift – his blood and power. But I cannot lie, and Kuran awaits an answer from me. I cannot lie, and I answer him with silence.

When I meet his gaze without a reply, the whole arena of audience seems to tense in anticipation of a royal's displeasure. Kuran is looking at me with guileless eyes, resting his chin on the edge of the staff like a child, and he smiles. When a few seconds confirm my silence, there is a collective heightening of disbelief from the on lookers.

_Rebellion! _They think incredulously. This gamble of defiance strings the vampires along, like sharks to blood, to _me_. For when Kuran falls, they will remember who defied him – I, Asato Ichijo. First, though, I want to enjoy this performance.

Kuran straightens and picks up the staff. Fear sears at my nerves – I know the staff will connect with my body, bringing pain and a twisted fulfillment.

I am wrong. When he swings the staff, he lowers it and it slams with brutal force into my right kneecap. There is a crunch of cartilage and them my entire body is listing to the side, my right leg collapsed; the rest of my weight comes altogether, lopsided, onto my left leg. It stretches my abdominal wound diagonally.

There is a wail of anguish that can only be mine. It echoes through the Court of Faith, strident and hideous in agony.

_I win, _I think, and I am not even coherent. But it is here, away from the humans Cross Kaien, Kuran-Cross Yuki, and Kiriyu, that Kuran can be himself, the viperous bloodletting beast that vampires are, and purebloods most of all. So much for all his years of careful, human bound compassion and civilised restrain – he still holds more than enough savagery to awe his followers and me.

After hitting me, Kuran has the presence of mind to taunt me with seduction. His mouth goes to my neck, fanning desire amidst my pain. Snakes writhe through my nerves, from my neck to each finger and every toe, sending venom into every muscle of my being. Kuran holds a ridge of my flesh between his teeth, pulling it in and sliding his tongue over it, reddened and sensitive as it becomes. He does to me what I'd thought, countless times, of doing to him; and, with this amount of restraint, it is clear Kuran has been plotting this out in his mind for some time now.

Triumph only adds to his appeal. His fingers prod my torn flesh around the wooden spear, then slides nearer the living spear that is mine, brushing delicately. No, he strokes with the sly intent of provoking my lust.

"You would yield our game in silence? For _shame_, Ichijo."

Nothing intelligent is forthcoming to my age-old lips. I'd like to think I laughed drily, but my moaning and gasping is unmistakable. His four fangs have pinned down the cleft between my neck and shoulder, where my bite area is, our most sensitive spot bar the points of sexual pleasure.

This little popinjay mocks me with hot, playful, dirty nothings. For shame indeed, that between the bone jarring pleasure flying from my neck and groin, and the pain concentrating and pooling in my abdomen, I have nothing intelligent to please this prince with.

Somewhere, there is a high, thin, terrified girl wailing, and the bloodscent of a common vampire fills the air. One of the Ancients has his hand on a firm, tan breast, it must be Kovou – he is squeezing her, tearing off her flesh, struggling not to tear _her _open entirely.

_End this! _He calls to me, his words barely sifting through my pleasure. _End this wolf-pup's farce, Eldest!_

Yes. It is time.

I moan, settling one arm over Kaname's shoulders, the other finding the stake in my middle. The pain is fast receding, and I am increasingly aware of his body over mine. I jerk eratically, gasping under his ministrations, and _now _Kaname trembles with the effort of self control. He repeatedly laves his tongue over my flesh, wetting it again and again, and all the time his fangs maintain their steady motion over my skin, cool points against his hot tongue – driving me insane, crazily wanton with lascivious thoughts –

With a guttural exhalation I wrench the staff out of myself body and in a single motion, propel my body forward. Kaname tumbles backward, off-guard, and I slam the stick straight across his throat. My weight, greater than his, settles across his thighs, preventing him from throwing me off. He is struggling to support the stick, but short as it is, he can gain no leverage and it is all he can do to prevent my strangulating him.

"For shame, Kuran, that you have bested me at my own tricks," I whisper, and I _smile. _

Oh happy priceless treasure!

For _there, _is the moment I have been waiting for, the strain in his neck as he struggles against the relentless weight bearing down on his throat, and lips no longer stretched over lascivious fangs, but hitching up in apprehension – I choose to broadcast the sensations with everyone (including him), and too late, he realizes that everyone feels what I feel : His hips jerk, trying to throw me off, the movement making my desire grind against _his_, _very _close to the sensation of copulation, and of course his arousal is no less significant than mine – I half thought he would stamp his feet like a child – he chooses to lie still then, and though he shows no sign of distaste, I can empathize with his dilemma. Struggling against me avails him nothing but humiliation of a fruitless effort, while lying at ease puts him in more vulnerability than any pureblood would be comfortable with.

_Now! _I cast my order to the skies, and at once the strength of the Council thunders down on Kuran, stronger than the katabatic winds. For purebloods can make anyone, _anyone,_ obey. With one word Kuran can make me grovel like a whipped mongrel. But against the combined might of the Ancient Thirteen, he has no chance.

When I release the staff, Kuran is still unable to move, held in place by Our silent order – _stay. _

And other thoughts, undercurrents of desire and gratification held at bay for decades – each of the thirteen have been indulging themselves in their own fantasies, and now they cannot help themselves anymore. Their thoughts flow through our bond, echoing in Kuran's mind and mine :

- _Stay, be good, be helpless, look vulnerable, beautiful man, how you have matured – _

- _Mine, take him, bruise him, bleed him, bury his pride!- _

One overwhelming scent, and it is no longer lust, nor arrogance. It is fear, a child's terror of the dark, sick and perverted by shadows and monsters – yes, yes, _yes, the fear, I can smell it, at last!_

I smile again. My right hand goes to his left breast, caresses the curve of muscle, settles, fingers splayed, over his heart. His thighs tense, and unwillingly, through me, he lets the entire audience feel his taut muscles between their legs, hears their fey laughter. Everyone within the Court of Faith takes pleasure from a pureblood at the disposal of their imagination.

**_~ Before today is done, I will make the lowest of vampires in the Court of Faith ride on your submission. ~_**

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Dark and twisted, I stopped short of any truly graphic scene...constructive criticism is always welcome! Too long, too dreary, too repetitive? Too mild? Odd? Please review and give me your thoughts, great reader!


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